Japanese Pole Vaulter at Rio 2016, Hiroki Ogita has hit back on Twitter at the jests and criticism he’s received after his seemingly ‘erect’ penis and leg hit the bar at 17 feet, 4 inches leading to his disqualification from the men’s pole vault competition on Monday.
The video quickly spread online with most people on social media joking that he would have qualified if his erect penis hadn’t gotten in the way. The athlete has fired back on Twitter.
“I never expected the foreign media to take me down like this,” the 28-year-old athlete tweeted in Japanese. “It’s one thing if it was true, but I have to say I’m pretty devastated that they’d go so far to make something up to mock and ridicule me so much.”
“To be honest, it’s pretty rough, but I guess I’m in the spotlight so this might be some kind of opportunity. I’ll do my best and get the results so that I get the last laugh,” he wrote.
“It doesn’t matter if you do it for a joke or whatever, I ask you to go and watch an actual game at a stadium for once. I hope you appreciate, even a bit, what a great sport pole vaulting is.”
He eventually tweeted that he was able to see the funny side of the whole episode: “Watching again, this is pretty funny, if I say so myself. LOL.”
“He had already pressed on the crossbar so much,” pole vaulting coach David Yeo said in Singapore.
“The crossbar was bound to dislodge. I think it was just the crumpling of the fabric which happened at the wrong position.”
Mr Ogita did clear the bar on his second attempt but as he only managed a height of 5.45m on his final jump, the earlier foul cost him. He finished too far down the field to progress through the qualifying stage.
Watch the video of how it happened below. ..
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